An updated post on the Bethesda Blog announces the version 1.9 update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has emerged from beta testing, and is now available for the Windows version of the game (thanks Joystiq). They say this release came a couple of days ago, though it's not noted on Steam, and word is they hope to release this patch for the console editions "later this month." Here's the change log:

NEW FEATURES

Legendary difficulty setting

Legendary Skills – Skills of 100 can be made Legendary. This will reset the skill to 15, return its Perks and allow the skill to affect leveling again. This effectively removes the overall level cap.

Bug fixes after the break…

BUG FIXES

General memory and stability improvements

Fixed issue with quest scripts that were not shutting down properly

Companions will equip better weapons and armor if given to them

Fixed rare issue where player is unable to learn the Clear Skies shout during “The Throat of the World”

Fixed rare instance where Alduin would become invincible during “Alduin’s Bane”

Fixed a rare issue where player could become stuck in Night Mother’s coffin during “Death Incarnate”

Fixed rare issue where protected companions could be killed from poison damage

jdreyer wrote on Mar 21, 2013, 15:40:How does Legendary skill work? Is it now equal to 101, but just set at 15? So if you get it back to 100, it will be essentially 185? None of my Skyrim chars are at 100 skill yet.

The Legendary skills system works like Prestige Mode from Call of Duty's multiplayer. When you hit the level cap on a skill, you have the option to turn it into a Legendary skill. Doing so returns all the perks you had spent in that specific skill tree and turns it down to level 15. This is essentially meant to be a way to completely remove the level cap from the game and give players an incentive to play further.

I don't think it's all that exciting, sounds like it just makes you even more OP. I don't have the game yet though, so I'm not exactly sure the leveling mechanics work.

Well, I'm running these at the moment..-A Clothes by Hentai-A Quality World Map-Amethyst Hollows Dreamworld-Apachii Sky Hair-Arise - Chapter 1 - The Black Sacrament-Bandolier - Bags and Pouches-Bat Travel Vampire Power-Better Circlets HQ-Better Vampires by Brehanin-Bottle that Blood-Calientes Female Body Mod BBE-Crossbows Revamped-Dark Illusion (armor)-Vampire Face Fix-Enchanting I do what I want-Enhanced Distant Terrain-Fores New Idles-HentaiGale Armor-Imaginator-Into The Depths-JaySuS Swords-Levelers Tower-Lilths Sickle-Lustmord Vampire Armor-Moonpath to Elsweyr-Named Souls in Gems-Pinup Poser-Predator Vision-Royal Bloodline-Skyrim Monster Mod v12-Sky UI-Soul Gems Differ-Tourettes Crabs-Ultra Realistic World Lighting-Vampire Face less sunken cheeks-W.A.T.E.R. Water and Terrain EnhancementSome of these would be essential to me while others I think just make things more fun. I like some of the additional abilities I get as a vampire with the vampire mods like Bat Travel, which allows me to fly around Skyrim as a cloud of bats. JaySuS Swords adds a ton of new high quality weapons, I use both Leveler's Tower and Amethyst as player homes. Anyhow, player choice is what makes mods so great.

Primalchrome wrote on Mar 21, 2013, 14:40:What mods do you guys feel are important to enjoyment of the game? The only mod that I have kept enabled has been for inventory management....

Any of the various HD mods. SkyUI. Some kind of lighting mod (bethesda's default lighting is TERRIBLE.) Beautiful Whiterun and Beautiful Riften are fantastic.

And I recently came across a mod called "Meshes fixed" or something like that, (I'll have to look it up at home) which takes all the shitty 3D consolized models, and has rebuilt them into proper 3D models that actually have depth to them and don't look like Doom sprites. It's a massive mod, and it noticeably increases your load times, but everything looks so awesome with it.

LittleMe wrote on Mar 21, 2013, 11:49:By Bethesda's standards this is a big patch but by industry standards it isn't.

Really? These days most developers simply leave their games broken and non-working after a year.

MA is right. By any company's standards this is a significant patch when you consider the game was released in 2011. A year and half later you are lucky to get any kind of patch at all for an offline single player game from the overwhelming vast majority of developers.

That said, it is valid to point out that there is quite a bit of this that should have been addressed some time ago or, at the very least, would have been great to have done before Dawnguard and Dragonborn were released.

The only affect this had on my list of mods (so far) is that it removes a few that are no longer needed...which I tend to think is a good thing. There is probably some redundancy between this patch and a couple of my larger mods but nothing game breaking. I am sure the mod authors will sort it out fairly quickly. If they don't do it, someone else will do it for them. Another great thing about mods.

It's a start. Thanks Bethesda. That said, it looks to me like only the first two or three are significant fixes. The rest look like simple quest-type fixes, but I can't be sure what was done or how much work was put into this patch. By Bethesda's standards this is a big patch but by industry standards it isn't.

Hopefully Legendary adds more challenge, without using any mods the game got pretty easy towards the end once you had good gear, even at the hardest difficulty, glad to see they're adding some more replay value to the game.